Monthly Archives: May 2012

I went to Silicon Milkroundabout 2012

Updated… added article links, blog links and YouTube links. 

Here are some article links and blog links from other people who went to Silicon Milkroundabout 2012, I’ll keep checking for any more and add them in as and when I find them.

By Wilde Hart
http://wildehart.com/2012/05/29/silicon-milkroundabout/
By Dan Maharry, on a .NET perspective
http://blog.hmobius.com/post/2012/05/29/Looking-for-NET-at-Silicon-Milkroundabout.aspx
By Geekonomicon
http://geekonomicon.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/silicon-milkroundabout-3-0/
The Economist 
http://www.economist.com/node/21556286

YouTube videos
Siliconmilkround channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/siliconmilkround
Various time lapse videos of the event
http://youtu.be/MQZsY2Kcz2o

My Original Post: 
Yesterday – Sunday 27 May – I went to Silicon Milkroundabout, the job fair for startups looking to hire techies of all types.

My main impression is that it was an excellent event, giving job hunters (like me) and companies the chance to discuss their products and the job opportunities they had. Among the people I talked to were CTOs, Dev Team Leaders, Developers and also Company Founders, so it was a great chance to talk to people who are already working at the companies.

On Saturday I had done some prep and checked out all the companies attending, to see which ones I should focus on seeing, this took a while to do but was very valuable as there were about 100 companies there and this prep enabled me to see the companies I really wanted to chat to, rather than randomly talking to anyone.

It was very hot inside the Truman Brewery building, not really designed for 28C temperatures, but the free bar really helped everyone to cool down and was also a good place to have a chat to other techie types. It was a nice touch to have a free bar in a former brewery!

When entering the building they had a proper registration check, where they checked my registration/email address, once this was done, they gave me a great little booklet, which had details of all the companies there including details of what the company does and what roles they’re hiring for.

Well done to Pete Smith of Songkick who started up the event and it looks to have a great future. This is the sort of thing that the government should be organising (eg Vince Cable and his mates) but then they’d probably mess it up.

Now I’m in follow up mode, getting in touch with the companies I had a good chat with, hopefully it might lead to an exciting job in the world of startups.

Blog entries

http://jimmytidey.co.uk/blog/silicon-milk-roundabout/

Links:

http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/

There are also Silicon Milkroundabout groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.

 

By |May 28th, 2012|Development, Events, Job Fairs|1 Comment
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Silicon Milkroundabout 2012 – Sunday 27 May

This Sunday I’m off to check out the job fair action at Silicon Milkroundabout, at the Old Truman Brewery, near Brick Lane, London. This is where UK tech startup companies aim to hire developers, designers, testers and all sorts of tech types. According to the FAQ, they’re hiring those with experience from 1 to 40 years, so not just those fresh out of uni.

To register to attend, go to http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/

There are events on Saturday 26 May for ‘Product Managers and Designers’ and Sunday 27 May for ‘Technical’ types.

Among those companies attending are:

  • Moo
  • Badoo (also sponsoring free bar and chillout area!)
  • Songkick (also sponsoring free coffee)
  • Mind Candy (also sponsoring free fruit)
  • Shazam
  • 7digital
  • Twitter
  • QuBit
  • CityMapper London
  • ViaGoGo
  • Huddle
  • Yammer
  • And loads, loads more – the full list is at http://siliconmilkroundabout.com/companies

Below is an audio interview with Songkick Founder Pete Smith who also started up Silicon Milkroundabout, well worth a listen if you’re going.

Here’s some links to previous attendees thoughts:

 

By |May 26th, 2012|Development, Events|2 Comments
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Studying for ‘Software Testing: ISQTB-ISEB Foundation’ exam

Now that I’ve gone through the official study guide book ‘Software Testing: An ISTQB-ISEB Foundation Guide’ I need to work out my preparation for the Certification Exam.

The book itself first recommends reading through the ISTQB Syallbus document, as its the basis of the exam itself – questions are raised directly from the syllabus and the wordings are very similar. The ISTQB Syllabus can be found at http://certifications.bcs.org/upload/pdf/swt-foundation-syllabus.pdf

Next, the book recommends going through an ISEB example exam paper, to gain familiarity with the questions and to see how much you have remembered and understood. After some Googling around, I managed to find the following sample exam papers/links:

The best plan seems to be doing an example exam or two then checking which areas you need to revise on most. After that revision then attempt another example exam and see where your understanding is at and what areas you may still need to go over again.

Also useful is the ISTQB Glossary of Testing Terms, available in PDF from http://www.istqb.org/downloads/viewcategory/20.html

Other useful links

http://www.softwaretestingstuff.com/

 

 

 

By |May 25th, 2012|Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is a brief chapter, entitled ‘The Examination’.

It covers the exam structure, the types of question, some example questions in different K1/K2/K3/K4 categories, exam techniques and revision techniques.

In brief, the exam is 1 hour long and contains 40 questions. The pass rate is 26 correct answers, so thats 65%.

The topics covered are:

  • The examination
  • Revision techniques

 

By |May 25th, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 6

Have now worked through Chapter 6 of the book, entitled ‘Tool Support for Testing’. This is another very comprehensive chapter, which took around 9 hours of studying, over a few days.

It covers the main topic of testing tools, describing in-depth the range of different types of tools, what they’re used for and the benefits and potential disadvanatages of using them. It covers the actual description/theory of each tool, rather than specific tools/software that may be in use. It finally concludes with a process to introduce testing tools into an organistion.

The topics covered are:

  • What is a test tool?
  • Test tools
  • Introducing a tool into an organisation

In order to understand just how many test tools there are, I’ve created two lists from the information in this Chapter, to help my learning/revision. The first list below covers all the test tools discussed in the Chapter, arranged by their ‘ISTQB Syllabus Classification. The list after that is these tools but arranged by ‘Most Likely Users’.

List of Tools by ISTQB Syllabus Classification

Classification: Management of Testing and Testing:

  • Test Management Tools
  • Incident Management Tools
  • Requirements Management Tools
  • Configuration Management Tools

Classification: Static Testing: 

  • Review Tools
  • Static Analysis Tools
  • Modelling Tools

Classification: Test Specification:

  • Test Design Tools/Script Generators
  • Test Oracles
  • Test (input) Data Preparation Tools

Classification: Test Execution and Logging:

  • Test Execution/Test Running Tools
  • Test Harness/Unit Test Framework Tools
  • Test Comparators
  • Coverage Measurement Tools
  • Security Tools

Classification: Performance and Monitoring:

  • Dynamic Analysis Tools
  • Performance Testing/Load Testing Tools
  • Performance Testing/Stress Testing Tools
  • Monitoring Tools

Classification: Data Quality 

  • Data Quality Assessment Tools

Classification: Usability 

  • Usability Tools

Classification: Other Tools 

  • Spreadsheets, SQL, Project Planning Tools, Resource Planning Tools, Debugging Tools

List of Tools arranged by ‘Most Likely Users’ 

Users: Business Analyst 

  • Requirements Management Tools

Users: Testers

  • Test Management Tools
  • Incident Management Tools
  • Test Design Tools/Script Generators
  • Test Oracles
  • Test Execution/Test Running Tools

Users: Developers 

  • Static Analysis Tools
  • Modelling Tools
  • Test Harnesses/Unit Test Framework Tools
  • Coverage Management Tools
  • Dynamic Analysis Tools
  • Debugging Tools

Users: Testers and Developers 

  • Test Comparators

Users: Various 

  • Incident Management Tools
  • Requirements Management Tools
  • Configuration Management Tools
  • Review Tool
  • Test (input) Data Preparation Tools
  • Monitoring Tools
  • Data Quality Assessment Tools
  • Spreadsheets, SQL, Project Planning Tools, Resource Planning Tools

Users: Specialists 

  • Security Tools
  • Performance Testing Tools
  • Usability Tools

 

By |May 25th, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Yahoo Axis – new visual search tool

Saw news article about Axis on BBC web site today, so tried it out. Its available on the desktop as a browser extension and also on iPad and iPhone.

I tried it as a browser extension inside Chrome. Its a very quick install and setup via http://axis.yahoo.com/

Below is a screenshot example of a search for Euro 2012. As you type your search query, it shows you a list of possible searches underneath and matching visual searches to the right hand side. In the Euro 2012 example, it shows the official UEFA Euro 2012 site, then the Wikipedia page for it, then some other Euro 2012 pages.

What I’ve seen so far is good, though with these things it takes a while before you know if you like something new or not. One of best ways to tell is how much you use it.

Axis Screenshot

Axis Screenshot

By |May 24th, 2012|New Tech|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 5

Have now worked through Chapter 5 of the book, entitled ‘Test Management’. This is another very comprehensive chapter, which took around 7 1/2 hours of study, over a few days.

It covers many different topics including testing and risk, test planning, test control, roles and tasks, test management, test design/specification, test metrics and test reporting plus many more related topics.

The topics covered are:

  • Risk and testing
  • Test organisation
  • Test approaches/test strategies
  • Test planning and estimation
  • Test progress monitoring and control
  • Incident management
  • Configuration management
By |May 23rd, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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New Uniface Blog found via LinkedIn

I found this new Uniface developer’s blog via LinkedIn today:   http://uniface.blogspot.co.uk/

Topics already on there include:

  • Reserved operation names
  • String manipulation performance
  • List processing performance
  • Images in dropdowns

The blog is by Rik Lewis. Good luck with the blog Rik and long may it continue…

By |May 23rd, 2012|Development, Uniface|0 Comments
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Studying ‘Software Testing: ISEB Foundation’ – Chapter 4

Have now worked through Chapter 4 of the book, entitled ‘Test Design Techniques’. This is a very comprehensive chapter and took about 9 hours of study to get through, over a few days.

It begins with coverage of key terms, then covers the basic process of creating a suite of tests, then explores three categories of testing: specification-based testing, structure-based testing and experience-based testing. If finishes off with a section on the selection of test techniques.

The topics covered are:

  • The test development process
  • The idea of test coverage
  • Categories of test case design techniques
  • Specification-based (black-box) techniques
  • Structure-based (white-box) techniques
  • Experience-based techniques
  • Choosing test techniques

 

By |May 22nd, 2012|Books, Development, ISEB, Software Testing|0 Comments
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Mobile Development Platforms – iOS, Android, Blackberry, Kindle Fire

Updated: 22 May 2012 

I’ve done some research into the different Mobile Development Platforms, as there’s now so many different offerings from different manufacturers.

Here’s the current state of play:-

iPhone / iPad 
Objective-C using iOS development platform

Android
Java using Android SDK development platform

BlackBerry
Java using  BlackBerry API development platform – BlackBerry Java SDK
Can also port Android apps to BlackBerry using BlackBerry Packager for Android Apps

Amazon Kindle Fire
Uses customised version of Android OS 2.3

Sony Tablet 
Uses Android 3.1 Honeycomb

Samsung Tablets
Uses Android OS, also Samsung libraries, plus also their own Bada OS, which uses C++

All Platforms – HTML5/WebKit
Using HTML5 would allow web apps to work on all of these devices but – in most cases – you wouldn’t be able to access any of the specific hardware of each device. This may change over time, if the relevant support is added somehow.

Porting Android Apps 
From the above list, this means that if you develop an App in Android / Java you can then port it to BlackBerry and the Amazon Kindle Fire. I assume a port to the BlackBerry would take more effort/time than a port to the Kindle Fire.

By |May 22nd, 2012|Android, Apple, Apps, Development, iOS, Java, Sony, Tablet|0 Comments
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